All Christian writers insist that the spiritual love of the
God-head is superior to the carnal love of the humanity, which serves as
introduction and means to man's final end in unitive love-knowledge of the
divine Ground; but all insist no less strongly that carnal love is a necessary
introduction and an indispensable means.

Aldous Huxley - The Perennial Philosophy

"If I were to point to any part of my life as my most
intensive practice, I would point to marriage. And that's been a quite
conscious effort too."

Steven Michael - "No Enlightenment" (Article)

You see, the whole thing in marriage is the relationship
and yielding - knowing the functions, knowing that each is playing a role in
an organism. One of the things I have realized - is that marriage is not a
love affair. A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction. But
marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again. That's why it's a
sacrament: you give up your personal simplicity to participate in a
relationship. And when you're giving, you're not giving to the other person:
you are giving to the relationship. And if you realize that you are in the
relationship just as another person is, then it becomes life building. A life
fostering and enriching experience, not an impoverishment because you're
giving to somebody else. Do you know what I mean?

Joseph Campbell - An Open Life

Both heterosexual and homosexual marriages, whether
legalized by civil or religious ceremony or not, if they are to meet the human
potential for development in the life of the Spirit, will be increasingly
characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity,
gentleness, and self-control. . . That form of sexual expression and union is
best which effectively differentiates, for real union differentiates. Again
that form of union is good which fosters and encourages the interiority and
subjectivity of both, thus furthering individuation and a marriage of the
masculine and the feminine components in each individual. Where
differentiation and real interiority are present, more profound communion is
possible, communion of which sexual intercourse is the sacrament,
"outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace".
Clearly these values are furthered most by an exclusive relationship, and one
in which the mutual commitment is abiding and unconditional.

John R. Youngblut - The Gentle Art of Spiritual Guidance

"God-consciousness is not sublimated sexuality;
sexuality is repressed God-consciousness."

Since Washburn endorses what I believe is that same error
(above), it is no surprise to find, ten years later, in Washburn's (1988)
book: "Contrary to the Freudian position, then, according to which spirit
is sublimated libido, the position that I am advancing is that libido is
repressed spirit." The problem with that view is that it unmistakably
means that enlightened beings can have no libido or no sex, which is silly.
Some, indeed, are ascetic in relation to the gross plane in general; they
restrain their use of money, food, and sex in their desire for disciplined
awareness. But that hardly means that they could not genitally function,
period. In my opinion, this is yet another example of the pre/trans fallacy -
in this case, the lumping of pre-genital with trans-genital and then confusing
the two. Contra Washburn (and my own earlier model), libido is not repressed
spirit; libido is simply the lowest expression of spirit, but an expression
nonetheless (which is precisely why Tantra uses sexuality to climb back to
spirituality, which it could never do if the one were merely the repression of
the other). In other words, sexuality and spirituality are not mutually
exclusive or even incompatible, which they would have to be if one were simply
the repression of the other.

Ken Wilber - Two Patterns of Transcendence

It has long been noted that the process of spiritual
awakening and growth is associated with periods of rising sexual passion. In
part this comes from the frank liberation of energy that accompanies lessening
of attachments and release of psychological blocks. It is also connected with
the awakening of ever deeper levels of love. Often these energies surface as
passionate feelings that seem to be looking for an object. It is all well and
good to say that their true object is God, but pilgrims who find themselves
suddenly infused with passion may have difficulty seeing God as a sufficiently
identifiable, immediate, and substantial object. Instead, they may seek
outlets for these feelings in sexual relationships with other people.
Sometimes the other person is the director. . . . .

Sexual feelings may also occur within the direction
relationship as an outright substitute (displacement) for one's hunger for the
Lord. Here again, the desire for losing oneself in God often finds expression
in the safer, less demanding act of giving oneself to another person. While
seeking spiritual fulfillment in erotic sexual relationships is an exceedingly
common phenomenon because it preserves self-image, it is never finally
satisfying because it always represents a side-tracking of one's primary
longing. This is not to say that normal sexual relationships need to interfere
with one's search for God. They can, under the proper circumstances and with
the right attitudes, be ways of celebrating God. And they can certainly be
avenues towards deeper appreciation of oneself and others. Finally, they can
be simple, honest expressions of our graced human existence. But they must be
recognized for what they are - interpersonal relationships and nothing more.
When they become mixed up with more specifically spiritual aspirations, deep
confusion can occur; celebrations of God's creation and searching for deeper
relationship with God are not quite the same thing. . . . .

It seems to me that at our present place in history, the
two most important dimensions of life to see through are psychology and
sexuality. Both provide endless opportunities for reducing or eclipsing the
reality of God for us as we delude ourselves into believing we see the Creator
when we are really viewing the creation. They are so wonderful, so
fundamentally good. Our individual and collective minds are an exceedingly
rich resource for exploration of ourselves as God's creation. But while the
mind is of God, it is not God in God's entirety. Sexuality offers us the
closest possible experience to joining with another, and it reflects in broken
but endlessly hopeful ways what God's inloveness with us might be like. But it
is not the path to God.

Gerald May - Care of Mind Care of Spirit

Deception is almost impossible in sexual activity. This
does not mean that deceptions are never attempted. Nevertheless, in lovemaking
few people can successfully disguise how they feel about themselves or the way
they relate to others. Sexual activity is the most truthful of all human
activities. It is for that reason it is often exceedingly threatening and
problematic.

There is both sadness and joy in any loving relationship,
love and death are inseparable both in myth and human experience. It is
through love that the individual fulfills his reproductive function and
transcends his own morality.